Romain Grosjean has set his sights on a top ten qualifying position at next weekend’s German Grand Prix after an exit in Q2 cost him a chance of points at Silverstone.

The Frenchman started last weekend’s British Grand Prix in 11th place, but a poor start meant that he nearly got caught up in Kimi Raikkonen’s crash that led to the race being red flagged for one hour. After taking the restart in 17th, Grosjean fought his way through to finish a respectable P12, but he is hoping for better in Germany.

“I was lucky to avoid the incident at the first start and towards the end of the race our pace was quite good, but starting so far down cost us the chance of points,” Grosjean explained. “We can’t afford to give our rivals a head-start like that and a top ten grid place will be the first target for Hockenheim.

“We’ve worked hard to improve performance in the low-speed corners, so Hockenheim will be a good test of how much we’ve progressed. Apart from the run down to the hairpin there are no real straights to speak about so power unit emphasis will be on acceleration rather than top speed.”

Lotus has struggled to match its excellent 2013 form so far this season, scoring just eight points all courtesy of Grosjean. However, Romain thinks that the forecast rain could work in the team’s favor at Hockenheim.

“The weather played a part in the Silverstone weekend, just as it did at Hockenheim in 2012, so we’ll need to stay on our toes,” he said. “I think as a team we have more to gain than lose from any weather changes so we should view them as an opportunity. The E22 seemed to like the damp conditions at Silverstone.”